1. Field Of Invention
This invention relates to the management of wiring and other communications media commonly used in buildings, office parks and campuses for telephone, data and video communications.
2. Description Of Prior Art
In many office buildings, when new tenants move in or the communications requirements of existing tenants change, new communications wiring is installed. New wiring is preferred in many cases despite the existence of already installed wiring which could meet the new requirements and despite the significant expense involved in installing new wiring. One reason that new wiring is often installed is that records identifying the termination points of the existing wiring frequently do not exist or, if such records have been established, their current accuracy is questionable. This problem has become exacerbated by the divestiture of the Bell system, which previously managed this record keeping function, and the assumption of wiring management responsibilities by building owners and tenants. Often, such owners or tenants do not have the skill or the facilities to satisfactorily perform this management function.
Three methods previously have been employed to create new wiring records or to verify old records. One method is a trial and error process that requires personnel to use test equipment at both ends of each and every wire pair to identify the termination points. This process is quite labor intensive and, hence, expensive. The second method is a variation of the first method and involves the use of equipment at a central location that can be controlled by a test person at a remote location to identify specific wire pairs which connect the central and remote locations. This process is also labor intensive and potentially obtrusive in that it requires the test person to go to each remote location to perform the associated tests. The third method, typically applicable only to telephone systems, is to place a test call from the central location to the remote location and to await an answer from a person at that remote location who can provide identification information. However, this latter method usually is either unacceptably obtrusive or, if no one is present at the remote location, inconclusive.
As a result, it has been found that even at the current cost of new wiring, it is often preferable to install new wiring whose termination points are identified during the installation process, rather than to recreate or verify the records for existing wiring.